Greentea Peng: “Everyone’s trying to drown us in dread”

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Since Greentea Peng burst into the public consciousness with her 2019 single ‘Downers’, which introduced us to the distinctive nonchalant grit of her vocals, the singer-songwriter has dug out her own space in a crowded sonic field. Over the past decade, neo-soul and new wave R&B have risen to prominence and faded away, but with the injection of moody psychedelia, lyrics with urgent political messaging and creative recording processes – she recorded her debut album MAN MADE at 432 Hz, rather than the standard 440 Hz – I’ve always found myself excited for her new releases.

The same of course goes with her latest album, TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY, which sees her take a headier, greyer turn in her music. While much of her previous work has been focused on inequality, injustice and revolution – her 2021 track ‘Free My People’ saw her accuse: “Government indulgin’ in some incest” – TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY explores the politics of the personal. Set to be released on March 24, it’s her darkest, most existential, and most inward-facing record yet, and is fit for an era of seemingly endless external noise and fighting.

To hear more about it, I sat down with the singer-songwriter to chat about the album’s themes, growing more confident in front of the camera

What are you up to today?

It’s been an active morning with the little one, she’s in a wild mood. We’ve been reading Hairy Maclary and trying to get her to eat her breakfast. It’s been like World War III over here.

It must be a lot of work releasing an album – which I love by the way – while being a parent. What themes do you explore in it?

It’s an exploration of the self-political – everything from love to heartbreak and just the existential shit that is always preoccupying my mind. It’s more of an introspective album than MAN MADE, but it still travels those kinds of subject, through songs like ‘Glory’. In the end, the overall themes would be of transition and surrender throughout the album, and just coming to terms with that – real human shit, you know. I felt torn, there was so much going on politically around the world that it would be mad to put out something like MAN MADE, which was more overtly political, but actually my own life has been kind of chaotic and that space was what I was sucked into.

It's something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, in that for a while I really wanted to be loud with my politics and opinions. But as so many voices seem to be shouting so loudly now, as billionaires keep winning, it almost feels pointless.

Yeah, I’ve been feeling that as well. I’ve been trying to do more stuff on the ground rather than regurgitate buzzwords. It’s a difficult and confusing time.

Can you talk about the album name, TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY? Who needs to know that it’s sunny?

Just tell them, innit. Everyone’s trying to drown us in dread, spray the skies with shit – like tell them it’s sunny inside. You can’t dampen that internal sunshine, no matter the dread, no matter the challenges we’re faced with– it’s a kind of ‘we shall prevail’ sentiment. Initially it was kind of an oxymoron, because it’s quite a moody album. The artwork’s moody, it’s in black-and-white, and it’s a moody time for me. But within that I know there’s light to be tapped into.

Do you think it’s your darkest album yet?

Yeah, I think it is. I feel like it has been easy for people to just associate me with this hippy-esque, sun, flowers, peace and love [vibe]. But this record is very, very honest and an exploration of me and all my forms. I’m an eclectic person and a complex individual as a lot of us are. And actually, I spend a lot of my life in the darkness. The first couple of records I put out was me coming back to music and it was a beautiful time, but I felt comfortable enough in this record to explore that darkness and honour it. Because you can’t have dark without light. All the videos are quite dark – I’m an honest person and I just express what I’m feeling at the time, so it’s a reflection of how I’m feeling right now.

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Can you talk a bit about the videos? I’d heard that you had moved to the countryside recently, but ‘Stones Throw’ is of course in a very brutalist, urban environment.

For ‘Stones Throw’ we went to Latvia. It was very cold, and the one video that wasn’t in black-and-white, which I was a bit hesitant about at first. But because of the scenes and colours it made sense to keep it dark and have some of the colours in there. ‘TARDIS (hardest)’ is actually my favourite video from the album rollout – I helped direct that video and it was kind of my vision.

That’s interesting. You’ve previously said that if you could strip away all the music industry obligations, you wouldn’t want to do music videos. But the videos I’ve seen around the album seem to have had a lot of thought, care and creativity go into them – have you found they give you a different way to express yourself?

Yeah, definitely. Honestly, since I’ve had my daughter, I’ve come into myself a lot more. I’m more willing to explore different aspects of myself. ‘TARDIS (hardest)’ was the first music video that I’ve actually enjoyed and I can say that honestly – it’s the first where I had ideas for it, knew who I wanted to be in it, where I wanted to shoot it and the feeling I wanted from it. It’s still not my favourite part, I can’t lie. I think I’ve always had a very complicated relationship with cameras and my image in general. From a young age I’ve struggled with my reflection, which is probably one of the reasons I’ve since covered myself in tattoos, if I’m honest. So it’s always been a challenging part of it for me – anything to do with cameras, interviews, photos… but I do feel like I’m getting used to it. I hope I get to a point one day where I don’t even need to be in my music videos, and the music can speak for itself. But I do understand people need to be stimulated visually as well.

I think that’s a fairly natural thing.

I fucking hate being on camera. I love taking photos though – I initially thought I was going to be a photographer. I like being behind the camera, not in front of it.

We’ve spoken about the dark time it is in the world at the moment – the rise of the far right marches on, everyone is broke, and AI is probably going to take everyone’s jobs at some point – what does healing mean to you in 2025?

You know what? I question and think about this shit a lot, because in the west this idea that we’ve got of healing – going to yoga class, drinking matcha and going on fucking retreats. I feel disillusioned with the whole narrative over here to be honest. There’s women and children dying all around the world, our brothers and sisters every day – every fucking day – to feed this consumerist, fake life that we’re living over here, which is a complete bubble. It makes me question everything.

Obviously, there’s a lot of beautiful, beautiful things, but I struggle to conceptualise healing – I don’t know what it means. It’s a time where people really need to tap into what is it to be human? What is it to be part of this human family? What is it to love thy neighbour? To look after each other rather than just look after yourself. Everything seems kind of superficial to me right now, even myself if I’m honest.

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I saw last year that you launched a fundraiser Refugee Biryani and Bananas – can you talk about the cause and why it’s important to you?

I feel like it’s getting harder and harder to know who and what we can trust these days. We’re being drowned in misinformation and fake news, and everything is so contradictory and conflicting. No one knows how they can help or if anything’s actually going to help – like, if I send money over here, is this thing even real? So it’s been beautiful to be introduced to this grassroots charity, the people that run it, and to actually know that I can trust them. I wanted to investigate for myself and see the work they’re doing on the ground. It’s a beautiful and honest initiative.

It's started by a lady with Bangladeshi heritage, but she’s from England, and was a nurse until around 2015 when the inverted commas ‘refugee crisis’ started, and she went over to Calais in France to help out as a nurse. She decided that she couldn’t go back to work once she saw the state of things and the carnage that was unfolding, so she started this charity Refugee Biryani and Bananas. She’s probably one of the most selfless individuals I’ve ever met – a kind, beautiful woman who travels the world helping people wherever they need it. They’re based in Greece, where there are a couple of big refugee camps, but she’s also just been to the Rafah Crossing trying to get trucks across to Gaza. There are refugees there, there are thousands of displaced Sudanese people that need help. It’s easy to watch the news and just be like: “Oh, people on dinghies trying to get to our country.” But there’s people living in their own countries as refugees. Look at the people of Gaza – all over the world, people have been displaced by illegal wars and conflicts that need our help and support.

What does TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY mean to you personally?

It means a lot, and it means nothing at the same time. I’m happy with it, I’m excited, I’m energised, but in the grand scheme of things what does it mean, you know? But it’s another expression, and I love taking part in this dance of creation.

TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY by Greentea Peng is out on March 21.

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